


The Gloaming

by missazrael



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fluff, Gen, JeanMarco Gift Exchange 2017, Kelpie AU, M/M, One Shot, lol horse jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 11:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13076202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missazrael/pseuds/missazrael
Summary: Prompt: Well, kelpie legends suggest they often manifest as young men as well as weird water horse demons, and that's precisely what happened here. Marco's on a sabbatical, or a field trip, conducting research into the Lochs in Scotland. Jean's a kelpie kicked out of his lake and in pretty bad shape. What happens next is probably going to be full of hilarity and maybe some romance if y'all into that (it's fine Jean's human shaped it's cool)Jean is both human shaped AND horse shaped in this one, but don't worry, all the funny business takes place when he's human!  I hope you enjoy!





	The Gloaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MonoclePony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonoclePony/gifts).



The gloaming is Marco's favorite time of day.

The sun casts burnished light over the surface of the lochs, and the water laps peacefully on the shore. Birds chirps quietly in the trees, getting ready to bed down for the night, and if he stays out long enough, he'll hear the flutter of bat wings overhead. Everything is quiet, and still, and the barrier between the worlds grows thin and transparent, giving glimpses of the creatures lurking beneath.

Marco doesn't look at those creatures too hard, not wanting to attract their attention, but he can feel them watching him, and there's excitement in that.

Today has been a good day for research, and Marco's notebooks are filled with sightings of pixies and smaller fae and even what he was pretty sure was a Billy Blind. The satyr he saw two weeks ago has proven shy, and keeps to himself in the woods, but Marco is sure if he waits here long enough, the satyr will come back. It might involve stripping down and baring his chest and broad, freckled shoulders, but Marco isn't at that point yet. He's not due back to the university for another six weeks; he's got time.

The sun sets behind the hills, sending its last glimmers of light across the surface of the loch, and Marco sighs contentedly, closing his notebook. Back to his cabin now, to compile his notes, eat a solitary dinner, and then fall asleep to the sound of banshees calling each other in the hills. When they don't know anyone is listening, banshees actually have fairly musical, lilting voices, he's found, which the professors back at the university had been fascinated by when he reported it. The things Marco had to go through to _get_ that information had been rather unpleasant, and it took some heavier magic than he's capable of to reach an agreement with them and get them to leave him alone. 

The university professors had been less fascinated by that part.

Regardless, Marco and the banshees have an agreement and give each other their space, and he gets to go to sleep listening to their songs.

As he's standing up, Marco hears something splashing in the shallows of the loch. He pauses, waiting for a moment; whatever it is, it sounds big, larger than what he usually sees around the shores, and he wonders if one of the animals in the forest has blundered into the water with an injury. If it has, he should probably go and help it, or at least observe as it gets itself out of trouble. He's supposed to be impartial and let nature take its course, and most of the time, he does. When something is in danger, though, he finds it very hard to look the other way.

Marco follows the sound of the splashing, treading lightly and keeping himself hidden as best he can; if it is something dangerous, he doesn't want to disturb it. He's here by himself, after all, and while he's a seasoned camper with good instincts, it doesn't pay to play fast and loose with nature's larger beasts.

The splashing gets louder the closer he gets, and Marco can hear labored breathing and little grunts of pain. He crouches down behind some gently waving cattails, and peeks out around them, and his breath catches in his throat.

It's a horse. It's a tall, moonstone-colored horse, its coat glowing dully in the rapidly fading light, with a golden mane and tail, its hindquarters down and floundering in the mud. It thrashes its head back and forth, its eyes rolling wildly in panic, and Marco scrambles to his feet. Seeing a horse in danger tweaks his farmer's son instincts, and he starts making his way down the bank to the horse.

"Hey, boy. Whoah there, hey boy, hey..." Marco starts speaking, quiet and soothing, nonsense syllables and phrases, approaching slowly so the horse can see him. It tosses its head when it hears his voice, and Marco catches a glimpse of one of its eyes, wild and afraid, before it holds perfectly still, trembling all over. It watches him get closer, and when Marco steps onto the beach, the horse stretches its neck out to him, calling out with a thin, desperate little whinny.

"It's okay, buddy, I'm here." Marco stretches his hand out to the horse's face, and it touches his fingertips with its nose, just a brief, glancing contact, before whinnying and starting to struggle again, pawing frantically at the beach with its hooves but unable to get any traction to pull its hindquarters out of the water.

"Hey! Hey, whoah!" Marco ducks in under the horse's head to wrap both his arms around its neck and _pull_ ; he'd normally wait for the horse to calm down a little, but this one is so frantic that it's going to hurt itself, maybe break one of its legs, if he doesn't get it out of the mud and onto the dry shore. The horse's head snaps up and down, hitting him hard enough across the back to bruise, but then, with Marco's added strength, it digs its front hooves in and _pulls_. The two of them pull together, and the horse's hind legs come out of the mud with a sudden sucking sound. Marco stumbles backwards, and the horse surges past him to higher, dryer ground, knocking him over in the process.

"Thanks, buddy." Marco gets to his feet--his clothes are soaked and covered with mud, he's going to have to wash them tomorrow--and drags himself up the bank to see what he's got with the horse.

It stands trembling on the loch bank, splattered with mud and splay-legged, breathing heavily with its head low. It lifts it a little to watch as Marco comes closer, then drops it again.

"Poor guy..." Marco reaches out a hand, and the horse tosses its head a little before submitting to being touched on its neck. Its coat is silky and smooth under his hand, and he frowns. This isn't the coat of a wild horse; this horse belongs to someone, someone who cares about it and curries its coat. It's too well-cared for, too quiet and used to people, and Marco sighs; so much for research tomorrow, he'll have to take it around to the villages below the loch and find out who it belongs to.

"Sorry, buddy, I don't have a halter or a rope, so you're just going to have to be a good horse and come with me, okay?" Marco twines his hand in the horse's mane, wrinkling his nose when he gets a handful of seaweed. It must have gotten caught in the horse's mane when it was struggling in the water. "Can you come with me? You can stay in my barn and get some rest, and then tomorrow we'll go find your people."

The horse snorts, and Marco swears it rolls its eyes at him. 

It must be a trick of the light. It's getting dark out here awfully fast.

"Come on." Marco gives the horse's mane a tug, and it doesn't move. He tugs again, and the horse stays resolute, refusing to move.

"Is something wrong?" Still holding onto its mane, Marco moves along the horse's side, looking for gashes or any obvious injuries. It looks fine--filthy, but fine--until he gets to its hindquarters. Then Marco feels his eyes widen as he groans. "Oh, dammit..."

The horse's back half is hopelessly entangled in a discarded fishing net.

"No wonder you couldn't get out on your own." Marco lets go of the horse's mane--some of the hairs get tangled around his fingers, and he has to tug it free--reaching for his pocket knife with his other hand. "Who would use a net like this in this loch, huh? It's not even that deep!"

The horse snorts, and it sounds like agreement.

Marco gets to work sawing through the fishing net, working his knife in under the water-logged ropes and parting them. He fully expects the horse to run away once it's free, but that's okay. At least without its hindquarters tied up, it'll be able to find its own way home. He checks out the horse's legs as he cuts it free, and while it has some abrasions, it doesn't have anything seriously wrong with it. He also discovers that he's dealing with a stallion, a discovery that involves some very careful rope cutting and some worried-sounding nickers from the horse.

Eventually, all the ropes fall away, and instead of running, the horse turns its head and looks at Marco, its ears perked forward. 

"What?" Marco rises to his full height, rocking his neck back and forth to work the crick out of it as he pockets his knife. "Aren't you going to go home?"

The horse makes a low, friendly sound, and noses at Marco's pocket.

"Good luck, there aren't any treats in there." Marco runs his hand along the horse's neck, taking hold of its mane again, and the horse walks agreeably beside him as he leads it back to his cottage.

When he said he had a barn, that was a bit of an over exaggeration; he has a shed. But it's empty, and it'll be big enough for the horse to spend the night.

The horse doesn't balk, going peacefully into the barn, and Marco follows it inside, closing the door behind himself. He finds an old sack and uses it to wipe the horse down, and fills up a bucket of water for it to drink. The whole time, the horse stands in the center of the barn and watches him with gold-flecked eyes, its ears following him along with its eyes. 

"I'm going to leave you here tonight, okay?" Marco drapes a dusty blanket over the horse's back, and it snorts as he does, tossing its head. "Yeah, yeah, I know, not the best digs in the world. But it's better than being stuck out there in the loch, huh?"

He strokes the horse's nose, and it nips playfully at his fingers before sighing and butting his chest with its nose.

~*~

Marco startles awake, every nerve lit awake and singing. He's not alone.

The cottage room is silent, the moonlight painting it in shades of silver and white. Nothing moves, nothing makes a sound, as if the whole world is holding its breath, waiting. Marco starts to sit up, expecting this straight fugue state to break, and then his eyes catch movement in the corner of the room. He turns his head, and something steps from the shadows.

It's a man, young like himself, pale and naked in the moonlight, his skin alabaster white and his hair falling across his forehead in golden tumbles. The man's eyes burn gold, otherworldly eyes, and Marco swallows.

He's never seen such a beautiful man before, and he's met angels at the university.

"Who..." Before the rest of the question can leave his lips, the man is at the bedside, one finger on Marco's lips, silencing him. Marco looks up, his mouth still partially hanging open in question, and the man's eyes are even more brilliant up close, like suns burning in the pale, ghostly light. Marco swallows again, and the movement makes his lips close a little around the man's finger.

The faintest trace of a smile whispers across the man's face, and he traces Marco's lower lips with his thumb. 

"Who...?" Marco tries again, and this time, the man silences him with a kiss.

Marco is knowledgable enough to recognize magic, especially when it's being done _to him_ , but for once, he doesn't want to fight it. This doesn't feel like any curse he knows, any kind of dark magic he's studied. It simply _is_ , and for once, he's content to let the magic just wash over and around him, as he opens his arms and invites the man into his bed.

~*~

Marco wakes up late the next morning, full of delicious aches and pains, and sits up. His bed is empty but rumpled, bearing evidence of what happened last night, and Marco touches his lips, still swollen and tender from the night before. He looks down at his chest, and sees marks stippled across him, left behind by the man's teeth and lips, and smiles.

Something splashes outside.

Marco gets up, and tugs on a pair of pants before heading outside.

The morning light is dazzling, so bright he has to shield his eyes with his hand, and for a moment, he doesn't realize what he's seeing. It's the horse, moonstone white with a golden mane and eyes, frolicking in the water. When it sees Marco, it whinnies gaily and tosses its head in the air, sending a spray of water droplets into the air, where they catch the light and fracture into a thousand tiny rainbows.

"How'd you get out?" Marco makes his way down to the loch's shore, a little disappointed that it's the horse and not the man. "How am I supposed to take you home if you keep running away?"

The horse snorts, and then shimmers, and when Marco is done blinking, it's no longer a horse, but the pale-skinned, golden haired man from last night, standing waist deep in the water.

"Good morning." His voice is light and cheerful, deeper than Marco would have expected, and he waves as Marco stands on the shoreline, completely flabbergasted, his mouth open and his chin touching his chest. "Did you sleep well?" He chuckles, the sound melodious. "Once you decided you'd had enough and _went_ to sleep."

"You... you're..."

The man regards him seriously, even as his eyes twinkle with mischief. "You know what I am, Marco."

A kelpie. A water spirit, Marco's brain gibbers at him, supplying facts where logic fails. A water spirit that takes the shape of a horse and drags the unsuspecting to their watery graves. "But you..."

The man shrugs. "You never got on my back."

There's more than one way to interpret that, which they both seem to realize at the same time, and Marco flushes as the kelpie laughs.

"Are you going to try and eat me?"

The kelpie drops him a wink. "You mean more than I did last night?"

If possible, Marco feels his flush deepen, and he raises a hand to cover some of the marks on his chest.

"No, I'm not going to eat you." The kelpie gestures to his legs, currently underwater. "You helped me. I don't eat people who help me."

"Okay. Do I have to _keep_ helping you to stay, you know... not eaten?" Marco can feel excitement rising in his gut. Kelpies are rare, and frequently very unfriendly. He's both fascinated and, if he's being honestly with himself, horribly attracted to this one.

The kelpie shrugs. "Nah, we're good. Besides," another wink, "it'd be a shame to eat an ass that cute. Beyond the way that's fun for all parties involved, that is."

"Oh, _god_!" Marco plops down on the loch bank and covers his face, unable to keep the giggles from burbling up. "You're the _worst_!"

"You like it and you know it." Some gentle splashing, and the kelpie is suddenly sitting beside him, still in human form. Marco uncovers his face, and the kelpie smiles lazily and offers him his hand.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Jean."

A name. The kelpie gave Marco his name. Names have power, and the kelpie just gave it out like that. 

Marco takes the kelpie's hand in his, and gives it a firm shake. "I'm Marco."

The kelpie--Jean--smiles broadly, and Marco notices the seaweed tangled in his hair. "I've got the feeling this is the start of something beautiful, Marco."


End file.
